ABSTRACT The Data Encryption Standard (DES) algorithm, adopted by the U.S.

government in 1977, is a block cipher that transforms 64-bit data blocks under a 56-bit secret key, by means of permutation and substitution. It is officially described in Federal Information Processing Standards Publication FIPS PUB 461 (Jan. 1988). Superseded by revision FIPS PUB 462 (Dec. 1993). The following are the possible applications of a DES CORE: High speed ATM/Ethernet/Fiber-Channel switches. Secure video teleconferencing. Routers and remote access servers. DES key cracking engines. (Given a 64 bit plain text x and the corresponding 64 bit cipher text c, the 56 bit DES key can be found within 255 operations).

The features of our DES CORE are: Standard DES encryption / decryption algorithm. Two versions: fast operation and small size. Triple DES can be done using three passes, or three DES engines. ECB Mode of operation. Ability to operate in CBC, CFB and OFB Modes also with slight variation in hardware. Key can be changed on each 64-bit block with no performance penalty. Simple synchronous interface.

There are two versions of this core, one for high speed, and the other for small size. The high-speed core uses a 16-stage pipeline, one for each round of DES, processing a single 64-bit DES block every clock cycle. This requires quite a bit of logic to implement, but results in a very fast DES engine. The small version doesn't use a pipeline. Instead it uses an iterated approach. This takes 16 clocks per block, but is also about 1/3rd the size. Software Requirements

DES Algorithm is developed in VHDL language. The VHDL language provides the digital designer with a means of describing a digital system at a wide range of levels of abstraction. It also provides access to computer aided design tools ,which will compile and execute the programs .Active HDL simulator is used to tset the functionality of the application .Windows 2000 Professional operating system is used.